You understand that it is the senior political appointed officials (from the Obama administration) that have unmasked the characters they monitored electronically and distributed this information to the mainstream media?

Comey doesn't have the trust to define the situation. Clapper is one of the players. Congressional committees are too bipartisan to work. They only heighten the confict between the two sides. What public institution doing surveillance can step forward with something more people accept as the truth than don't?

Day after day, various media outlets, well really mostly the NYT and WaPo, have delivered Trump-administration-incriminating, Russia-link-related tape bombs sourced via leaks (in the hope of keeping the narrative alive and "resisting."). It now turns out, according to FXN report, that the US official who "unmasked" the names of multiple private citizens affiliated with the Trump team is someone "very well known, very high up, very senior in the intelligence world."

As Malia Zimmerman and Adam Housley report, intelligence and House sources with direct knowledge of the disclosure of classified names (yes, yet another "unnamed source") said that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, now knows who is responsible - and that person is not in the FBI (i.e. it is not James Comey)

Housley said his sources were motivated to come forward by a New York Times report yesterday which reportedly outed two people who helped Nunes access information during a meeting in the Old Executive Office Building. However, Housley’s sources claim the two people who helped Nunes "navigate" to the information were not his sources. In fact, Nunes had been aware of the information since January (long before Trump's 'wiretap' tweet) but had been unable to view the documents themselves because of "stonewalling" by the agencies in question. [....]
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/.....well-known

The tweets are at the site. It could be that we will soon find out who is responsible for ordering the 'unmasking' of American citizens caught up in spying.

It’s election day for much of Los Angeles, and voters in the central and northeast part of the city are trickling to the polls for a special election to help choose their next member of Congress.

The race for the 34th Congressional District seat, vacated by Xavier Becerra when he became California’s attorney general, has been a four-month sprint that attracted a whopping two dozen candidates.

Half of them are women. More than a third are millennials. More than half are immigrants or the children of immigrants. And almost all of them have vowed to fight President Trump in this left-leaning progressive district, where only 9% of voters are registered as Republican.

The first congressional primary since Trump’s election has surfaced some of the biggest points of contention in the left’s campaign of resistance: the Affordable Care Act, immigrants’ rights and the privatization of education. With 20 Democrats and a Green Party member competing for the progressive vote, many think the outcome could be an indication of where the fractured Democratic Party is headed next.

When it comes to the Tuesday special election to fill California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s former House seat, the 24 candidates can be divided into two groups: Jimmy Gomez and everyone else.

Gomez, a state assemblyman, has won valuable endorsements — including Becerra’s​ — and is expected to receive the most votes. But he isn’t expected to win a majority, which he’ll need to avoid a June 6 runoff.

Los Angeles voters will choose among Gomez and 23 other candidates, including 19 Democrats, in Tuesday’s all-party primary.
Under California’s system, the top two candidates will move on to a general election unless someone receives more than 50 percent of the vote.

With a slate of high-profile endorsements and a hefty campaign treasury, Gomez faces a variety of Democratic rivals.

“There’s a dominant, favored, establishment candidate who’s got all the endorsements. … There’s a bunch of different flavors of outsiders,” said Sean Clegg of SCN Strategies, a political consultant working for Sara Hernandez, who has raised more funds than any other candidate except Gomez, when candidates’ own contributions are excluded.

The district, which Sen. Bernie Sanders
(I-Vt.) narrowly won in last year’s Democratic presidential primary, will almost certainly elect two Democrats to go on to the general election.

On the other hand, if a split Democratic vote and Republican turnout somehow push GOP candidate William Rodriguez Morrison on to the next stage, the hotly anti-Trump district will likely give the seat to Gomez.

Most likely, a progressive will face Gomez, whose allies dispute the idea that he’s the establishment’s pick.

“Everybody else has been kind of trying to put Jimmy in the corner as part of the establishment,” said Larry Gonzalez, a Washington, D.C., political consultant who supports Gomez.

“If establishment means you have the most relationships and the most experience in the legislative arena, whether with the mayor or the Speaker of the House of California, then that’s a good thing,” he added.

Arturo Carmona, a former Sanders campaign staffer whose name is closely identified with the Vermont senator’s brand of progressive politics, has been one of Gomez’s strongest critics in the race.

Carmona, who raised the sixth most money among candidates in a Los Angeles Times analysis, went after Gomez’s fundraising record and sharply criticized the California Democratic Party’s endorsement of Gomez.

But Carmona, who boasts more name recognition than many of his rivals, took a hit Friday when former Sanders staffers accused him of covering up allegations of sexual harassment during the campaign.

“I categorically deny any accusations of sexual harassment or fiscal mismanagement made against me. I do not take this lightly,” Carmona told the Times on Friday.

The accusation was leveled by Masha Mendieta, a former Sanders staffer who now supports Hernandez. Other prominent Sanders campaign staffers backed up her claim.

But Carmona faces another big disappointment in the race: not receiving an endorsement from Sanders. That could still change if Carmona — or another progressive candidate — advances to the general election.

Although Sanders stayed out of the race, nationally recognized Democrats like Becerra and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti did not, and they leaned toward Gomez.

Most campaigns are expecting a showdown with Gomez in June, and many are expecting to rally around a single progressive candidate in the general election.

But the general election forecast could change, depending on which candidate grabs the second-place spot in the primary.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) has an interest in assuring that the seat continues to be held by a Hispanic lawmaker.

That decades-long streak is likely to continue, in part because a majority of the candidates are Hispanic.

But Robert Lee Ahn, a lawyer and businessman with deep connections to the district’s large Korean-American community, has surprised his rivals with a competitive fundraising and field operation.

Ahn has led the field with over $600,000 in contributions, according to Ballotpedia, although nearly half of that came from the candidate’s self-funding, according to the Times.

“He distorted the picture because he put a bunch of his own money in there, too,” said Clegg.

If Ahn makes it to the next round, Gomez’s support from Hispanics in the local and national parties could be galvanized to keep the CHC’s membership number at its current all-time high in Congress.

For a race involving two dozen candidates, there have been relatively few attacks among campaigns.

“It’s just mostly been focused on Trump at this point, and then ‘I’m going to go to Washington and fight against Trump,’ ” said Gonzalez.

The two general election candidates will likely keep in mind that the contest will highlight any lingering divisions in the party following a divisive presidential election year.

Keeping the general election relatively clean may prove easy compared with keeping track of the 20-Democrat field for Tuesday’s primary.

And the 34th District, despite its racial and cultural diversity, is one of the most politically homogenous districts in the country.

“They’re all really very similar. Where Jimmy has been able to distance himself from the pack, beyond the money, is that he’s actually done it. He’s actually passed legislation,” said Gonzalez.

But the fight between the party’s establishment and its challengers will dominate Tuesday’s primary, and whoever moves on to the next stage with Gomez will try to extend that debate until June.

“That’s really where it’s going to go. Do you want a Sacramento legislator who’s taking gobs of money from dirty special interests? Or do you want a classroom teacher? Or do you want a former school board member, or do you want a former White House aide?” Clegg said.

“Every one of the other candidates is going to present a walking, talking anti-establishment contrast to Gomez, and I think that’s his real challenge in the general,” he added.

1) It serves as a very interesting preview for the Senate Election in 2018, where Jon Tester (D) has by some accounts been considered a vulnerable seat.

2) Montana is a state that went Trump by more than 20% in 2016

3) The Democrats have nominated Rob Quist a popular musician who was a Bernie Sanders supporter (Sanders won Montana 52 / 44 over Clinton during the Primaries)

well I think the Montana special election offers some potential for the democrats , I'd feel its more likely to stay republican for the time being although likely closer results .

but turnout for special elections much like our by elections is very weird and often lower . so if one side can manage to motivate there supporters more than the other , things could get more interesting . which can make them kind of hard to predict

Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Ted Cruz wade into Kansas special election in final weeks

House Speaker Paul Ryan sent an email last week asking for donations on behalf of Ron Estes.

Vice President Mike Pence is expected to record a robocall to aid Ron Estes, running for the 4th Congressional District. National Republicans are making a last-minute push as Tuesday’s special election nears.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas (left) will be coming to Wichita on Monday to campaign with Republican candidate Ron Estes ahead of Tuesday’s special congressional election.

Vice President Mike Pence is expected to record a robocall to aid Ron Estes, running for the 4th Congressional District. National Republicans are making a last-minute push as Tuesday’s special election nears. John Minchillo - The Associated Press

National Republicans are wading into a Kansas congressional race few analysts thought would be competitive ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas will join Republican candidate Ron Estes at an airport rally Monday in Wichita, a day before voters in southern Kansas head to the polls to pick a new congressman. Vice President Mike Pence is also scheduled to record a robocall on Estes’ behalf, according to a state party official.

Cruz’s appearance comes on the heels of last-minute spending on television ads by the National Republican Congressional Committee and a fundraising push by U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin on Estes’ behalf.

Estes, the state’s twice-elected Republican treasurer, will face off against Democrat James Thompson and Libertarian Chris Rockhold in the race to replace Mike Pompeo, who gave up his seat in Kansas’ 4th Congressional District to serve as President Donald Trump’s CIA director.

Pompeo, a Wichita Republican, easily won re-election in 2016 with more than 60 percent of the vote in the district, which has not gone for a Democrat in more than two decades.

However, the last-minute push by national Republicans has caused analysts in both Washington, D.C., and Kansas to say that the race could be more competitive than previously thought.

Clay Barker, the executive director of the Kansas Republican Party, said the party had always planned a surge of activity in the final weeks of the election and that the push from national Republicans should not be interpreted as a sign the campaign is in danger.

“Special elections are weird. They’re unique because it’s off time. There’s no similar election you can look at. … It’s hard to figure out who exactly your voters are,” Barker said.

Barker said that he had made the request for Pence to record a robocall on Estes’ behalf and believed the vice president would be making the recording Friday.

“I know a lot of people just thought it would be a blowover,” Barker said. “We always remind people about Anthony Weiner’s seat going Republican in a special election.”

Cruz, a Texas Republican, gained national prominence for his hard-line conservative stances in the Senate and was the last major Republican candidate who sought to stop Trump from securing the GOP presidential nomination. He won the Kansas Republican caucus by double digits last year.

“He’s very popular here locally among the base,” said Mark Kahrs, the state’s Republican national committeeman, who served as Cruz’s Kansas campaign chairman and first approached the Texan about campaigning in Kansas for Estes.

Kahrs said early voting has fallen far below projections and that the appearance by the popular senator will help remind people in the Wichita region to head to the polls Tuesday.

“Most people don’t realize that there’s an election on,” Kahrs said. “There’s not a lot of mail. There’s not a lot of TV. Both campaigns have been somewhat under the radar.”

Estes said the event represents a “reach-out to shared supporters” between Estes and Cruz. “A lot of folks supporting me also support Ted Cruz,” Estes said.

Thompson campaign manager Colin Curtis said Cruz’s appearance wouldn’t change their strategy. He said Thompson is focused on turning out voters.

“To us, it just reinforces they’re panicking. They see the numbers, they see the operations we have here, and they see how good a candidate Jim is,” Curtis said.

Thompson’s campaign has sought to tie Estes to Gov. Sam Brownback, a strategy that was successfully used by Democrats in state legislative races last fall against Republican incumbents. Brownback has suffered from low approval ratings in recent years.

Thompson’s campaign has also repeatedly criticized Estes for skipping candidate forums and other public events.

The news of Cruz’s visit comes after a flurry of late campaign spending by the National Republican Congressional Committee, which steered roughly $92,000 this week toward television and online advertising for the final days of the campaign.

On Friday, the Thompson campaign asked KWCH in Wichita to pull one of the ads, which attacks Thompson on the issue of abortion. The ad says Thompson supports using tax dollars to pay for late-term abortions and supports sex-selective abortions. Curtis called the ad “outright false.”

Dominic Gauna, director of KWCH community relations, said the station had received the request from the campaign and has asked the NRCC to provide information about its claims.

The spending by the NRCC comes after Ryan sent out a “personal request” on Estes’ behalf to GOP donors.

Ryan’s email, which went out last week and was obtained by The Star on Friday, warned GOP donors that Estes’ opponent would “be well-funded by liberal special-interest groups in Washington and their vast resources.” Estes has actually held a fundraising advantage over Thompson for most of the race.

“As a friend of Ron’s and as House Speaker, I can tell you that this is one of the most important House races in the country. Please consider this a personal request,” Ryan states in the email before asking recipients to forward it on to five of their friends.

Ryan also sent Estes $5,000 from his leadership PAC in February after meeting him, according to an aide.

Chapman Rackaway, a political scientist at Fort Hays State University, said that Estes was likely counting on the fact that he was “a good, established statewide name” as the twice-elected state treasurer to carry him to an easy victory.

“You see this when a party has a big win. … The party in power can end up slacking a little bit, not mobilizing well for special elections like this,” said Rackaway, a former Republican strategist.

Last year, a mysterious candidate named Rodney Stooksbury spent just $346 to win more than a third of the votes cast in the 2016 general election for Georgia's 6th congressional district.

Later this month, the 18 candidates vying in a special election for the seat vacated by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price would love that kind of return on investment.

In this photo taken March 11, 2017, Georgia Democratic congressional candidate Jon Ossoff speaks to volunteers in his Cobb County campaign office.

The very red U.S. House district in Georgia is attracting more money and national attention than it ever has because it holds one of the first congressional races of the President Donald Trump era. Almost all of that money has gone toward helping — or directly opposing — a 30-year-old Democrat.

A special election on April 18 will start to settle who will hold the seat in the Atlanta suburbs. The crowded field includes the leading Democrat, Jon Ossoff, and several Republicans who have served in state government, like former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel and former state Sens. Judson Hill and Dan Moody.

The high-profile contest, which some see as an early test of whether Democrats can flip Republican districts in the Trump era, has sparked the interest of outside groups, as well. It is one of four special elections in which a red seat is up for grabs, vacated by a Trump nominee.

The race has attracted more cash from around the country than the district has ever seen. As of March 29, Ossoff had raised $8.3 million and spent $6.1 million — more than double the highest amount Price spent in any one of his seven election campaigns there.

Price first won the seat in 2004 and never spent more than $2.5 million in an election. Ossoff's haul is all the more remarkable because Price was no slouch with spending — he spent more than the average Republican and Democratic House incumbent in 2016.

Several groups dedicated to keeping the Republican House majority, as well as wings of the National Rifle Association and Planned Parenthood, have funneled more than $3 million into the race.

At least $2.5 million of that was spent to oppose Ossoff, the former congressional aide who has led most polling in the race, partly because of fractured support among Republicans. Ads targeting Ossoff have claimed he lacks experience and is too closely tied to top Democrats.

One even hit him for dressing up as "Star Wars" character Han Solo when he was in college. Another tied Ossoff to terrorist groups, even including an image of Osama bin Laden, because his filmmaking company reportedly produced documentaries for news outlet Al Jazeera.

There is nothing to indicate that Ossoff has any ties to terrorist organizations. His campaign manager Keenan Pontoni called the ad a "smear attack" and said it was "truly shameful."

In a statement, he said Ossoff is "proud of his work as an investigative filmmaker."

Ossoff has easily outraised his opponents. As of March 29, Handel raised about $463,000, Hill garnered about $473,000 and Moody about $108,000.

All the more unusual is the Hollywood attention Ossoff has attracted. Actor Jon Cryer and comedian Chelsea Handler both donated $2,700 to his campaign, and actress Alyssa Milano has publicly supported him, prompting an attack from Handel.

If no candidate in the April 18 election wins 50 percent of the vote, it goes to a June runoff. The top two candidates will advance regardless of party.

One recent poll showed Ossoff with 43 percent of support, well ahead of Handel's 15 percent. However, he faces a much tougher task in a runoff, as support would likely coalesce around a Republican.

Trump won the district by only 1.5 points last year. Still, Price got more than 60 percent of the vote there in 2016.

A solid turnout Saturday has pushed early voting totals past 21,000 for a key April 18 special election that includes the nationally watched race to replace former U.S. Rep. Tom Price.

Early voting in Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton counties for the election started two weeks ago and ends Friday, with each county as of this week opening at least two polling locations where eligible residents can cast ballots.

The 6th Congressional District that Price represented covers parts of each of those three counties.

The other race on the ballot is for Senate District 32, which covers parts of Cobb and Fulton counties. Former state Sen. Judson Hill, R-Marietta, vacated the seat to join the field of 18 candidates running to replace Price.

Most of those voting early so far are doing it in-person, although a number of absentee ballots have been requested but not yet returned.

According to the latest early-voting numbers available Monday from the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office:
•Number of ballots cast: 21,115
•Number of ballots voted in person: 18,033
•Number of mail-in ballots returned: 3,082
•Number of mail-in ballots outstanding: 5,691

How to vote early

Any voter registered in those districts can vote early.

Check before you go: These are not your regular neighborhood polling places. The municipalities are only opening select sites during the early-voting period.

Use the Secretary of State Office’s online “my voter page” website (www.mvp.sos.ga.gov/MVP/mvp.do) to find a specific early-voting location or to see a sample ballot.

You can also call your local elections office to find early-voting locations or look for the “advance voting info” link under the elections tab of the Secretary of State Office’s website (www.sos.ga.gov).

Don’t forget to bring photo identification, which can include a Georgia driver’s license, even if it’s expired; a state-issued voter identification card; a valid U.S. passport; or a valid U.S. military photo ID.

No “ballot selfies” are allowed at the polls, so wait to snap a photo until you’re outside. It is illegal in Georgia to take pictures of a ballot or voting equipment, but the Secretary of State Office has said it has seen voters in previous elections post “ballot selfies” on social media — something that could get you in trouble with the law.

Information about local elections and your “My Voter Page” can also be found on the free “GA SOS” app for your smartphone via iTunes or Google Play for Android

We get to find out of the Democrat theory that President Trump is wildly unpopular in areas he formally was very successful in shortly

Montana, Georgia, and Kansas are states that were won by 20%, 5%, and 20% respectively by the President.

Its also a no lose situation for the Democrats;
They are piling tons of money into the seats which conventional wisdom would tell us they have no chance in,

So if they lose;
Whatever they were GOP seats in GOP states,
But if they win even one they will run around and argue that 19 times out of 20 Hillary Clinton would have won the Presidency...Again.

In reality;
If the Democrats lose all three despite all the effort and money, then all of a sudden the question becomes is the President as unpopular as they hope he is or is this going to be the precursor for another surprise on election day 2018?

In the final hours of the special election to replace new CIA Director Mike Pompeo in Wichita, Kansas, Republicans are expressing alarm that Democrat James Thompson is within striking distance of carrying a seat President Trump won by 27 points last November. Although GOP state Treasurer Ron Estes remains the favorite heading into Election Day, we are shifting our rating from Likely Republican to Lean Republican.

Republicans familiar with recent polling describe extremely high Democratic intensity and very low GOP enthusiasm in what is likely to be a very low turnout special. More than that, Estes appears to be swept up in a last-minute vortex of factors outside his control: Democrats' anger towards Trump, independents' anger towards Gov. Sam Brownback and GOP dissatisfaction with early administration failures.

Another reason for KS-04's upset potential could be the manner of Estes's nomination. The special selection process fell to a committee of several dozen local GOP officials rather than a primary, which would have forced Estes to engage with base voters much earlier or could have produced an outsider nominee. A number of Republican notables, including Sen. Ted Cruz, are heading to Wichita at the eleventh hour in a bid to boost a lethargic base.

Even a single-digit finish in a seat like KS-04, with a Cook PVI score of R+15, would portend big trouble for Republicans in next week's special primary election in GA-06, which has a PVI score of R+8. There is a real chance Democrat Jon Ossoff, who is dramatically outspending the rest of the field while the main GOP contenders turn on each other, could hit 50 percent on April 18 and avoid a runoff. As such, we are moving GA-06 to Toss Up.

We get to find out of the Democrat theory that President Trump is wildly unpopular in areas he formally was very successful in shortly

Montana, Georgia, and Kansas are states that were won by 20%, 5%, and 20% respectively by the President.

Its also a no lose situation for the Democrats;
They are piling tons of money into the seats which conventional wisdom would tell us they have no chance in,

So if they lose;
Whatever they were GOP seats in GOP states,
But if they win even one they will run around and argue that 19 times out of 20 Hillary Clinton would have won the Presidency...Again.

In reality;
If the Democrats lose all three despite all the effort and money, then all of a sudden the question becomes is the President as unpopular as they hope he is or is this going to be the precursor for another surprise on election day 2018?

I don't know if trump's popularity is up or down in these 4 congressional districts or if that's really whats driving the campaigns .

thing is turnout drops for these types of elections and it appears the voters on the left who supported Bernie Sanders are worked up and upset trump won . and that may be driving up motivation among them .

were also seeing crazy amounts of money being spent by unknown people from outside the districts and even from outside the state itself . in Canada we have strict spending limits for by elections of around $100,000 . according to the article the democrat in Georgia has spent $6 million and most of it came from out of state likely liberal people from California and NY

in comparison it hardly be fair if there was an open by election in a tory seat in alberta and out of province liberals from Vancouver and Toronto donated $millions to try and elected a liberal in the riding ? even though they don't even live or have any connection to the riding . that's essentially what were seeing go down in the Georgia vote , this isn't money coming from actual voters in that district or even from other areas in Georgia , its almost all from out of state

also mention the race in Kansas doesn't seem to have attracted the same attention or out of state money as Georgia . even though it may be closer than other elections in the district .
kind of reminds me of the by election in Brandon Souris a seat that on paper should of been an easy conservative win but somehow by election day had become much closer than it ever should of been . but the close by election was a one time event and by next general election, the cpc majority had widen over liberals . is that similar to what were seeing in the Kansas race ?

also think even if the democrats manage to someone win the Georgia seat , either by slipping thru when republicans still divided at primary stage or on second vote . they'd have a really hard time holding the seat during an actual election when turnout returns to normal and out of state money is not flowing into the campaign

Kansas has been reliably Republican in federal elections, but GOP operatives head into Tuesday uncertain of an easy victory when the deep-red state holds the first congressional election since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Republican Ron Estes, the twice-elected state treasurer, faces Democrat James Thompson and Libertarian Chris Rockhold in the race to replace former Rep. Mike Pompeo, who gave up his seat in January to head the CIA.

Pompeo, a Wichita Republican, won re-election in Kansas’ 4th Congressional District by 31 percentage points in November. The last time a Democrat won the district — which is home to Republican megadonor Charles Koch — was in 1992.

But Republicans say they are in a tight race.

“I’ve heard people whose opinions I respect tell me they think it would be single digits,” said Clay Barker, the executive director of the Kansas Republican Party.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have recorded robocalls to urge voters in the Wichita area to vote for Estes. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican firebrand who won the state’s GOP presidential caucus last year, flew into Wichita for a rally Monday.

An internal poll circulating among Republicans showed Estes up by only a single point as of last week. Trump’s call suggests the urgency of the situation. “Ron Estes needs your vote, and needs it badly,” the president says in the call to voters.

An Estes loss — or even a win by only a slim margin — would likely be read nationally as a sign of a backlash against Trump in the heartland and be seen more locally as a renewed vitality for Kansas Democrats as they head into 2018 with the governor’s office and the rest of the state’s U.S. House seats up for election.

Ron Estes says he's proud of his Electoral College vote for Trump

Kansas officially picked Donald Trump for president on Monday.
Hunter Woodall - The Kansas City Star
Many GOP operatives have blamed the surprisingly competitive race on Estes’ campaign, which saw the Republican treasurer avoid some candidate forums and shoot an ad where he stood in a swamp and asked voters to help him drain it in a nod to one of Trump’s campaign slogans.

Bob Beatty, a political scientist at Washburn University, said Estes’ swamp ad was problematic both because “the image is ripe for mockery” and because Estes, as a two-term state official, cannot credibly run as an outsider who is going to drain the swamp.

Democrats have used the image of Estes standing in the swamp and superimposed Gov. Sam Brownback’s head on an alligator swimming alongside him.

“You really stay away from situations where you can be mocked or become an internet meme, and obviously him standing in a swamp with gators is going to bring a lot of chortles to the opposition,” Beatty said.

Barker said he’s received a lot of complaints about the campaign but that this was not uncommon in close races.

“You start getting people on the side saying they should’ve done this or they’ve should’ve done that,” he said.

Barker said the party has focused on turning out diehard Republican voters.

“We always thought turnout would be 20 percent, maybe a little lower, so we focused on the voters that we had to get,” he said.

Colin Curtis, Thompson’s campaign manager, said that Estes has “taken the district for granted and the people for granted. He expects these voters just to show up and blindly vote for him because he’s a registered Republican.”

He said that Thompson, a civil rights attorney, has crisscrossed the district to meet with voters in diners and coffee shops, attend community forums and go door to door.

“It’s definitely competitive. You can look at the early vote numbers. We’re neck and neck,” he said.

Nearly 13,000 GOP voters had cast ballots in advance by mail or in-person compared to about 10,900 Democrats as of Monday morning, according to data provided by the Republican Party. Another 3,400 unaffiliated voters, who could tip the balance, had also cast ballots.

Estes’ campaign manager, Rodger Woods, stressed the importance of turnout in the campaign’s final 24 hours in an email.

“Turnout is vital in Special Elections and in the next 24 hours we are focused on getting our voters to the polls on April 11,” Woods said. “We feel confident that South-Central Kansas wants to elect a conservative problem solver who is committed to balancing the budget, repealing and replacing Obamacare and protecting the unborn.”

Thompson’s supporters say their candidate’s hard work has energized grass-roots activists and made the race competitive unlike previous Democratic campaigns, which fell flat. Thompson’s unique biography — he was homeless as a child and served in the U.S. Army — has helped him appeal to voters.

As an attorney, Thompson has sued the city of Wichita on behalf of people who have been shot by police, according to Djuan Wash, a Black Lives Matter activist who has served as the campaign’s director of African-American outreach.

“I think that really excites people to have someone who has fought on behalf of the rights of the disenfranchised and abused,” Wash said.

Estes has seen a flood of spending by national Republicans in the final days of the race, while Thompson’s campaign struggled to get the Kansas Democratic Party or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to devote significant financial resources.

“There was potential here,” Curtis said. “We tried to make that selling point. We didn’t get buy-in initially.”

The DCCC did not directly answer a question about the organization’s lack of spending in the race, but it did tout that it would be launching a phone campaign Monday to reach 25,000 households in Kansas to encourage voter turnout.

Meredith Kelly, the DCCC’s spokeswoman, said it’s clear Thompson has “worked harder and smarter than his opponent, and national Republicans are feeling the pressure in their effort to hold onto this reliable seat.”

Jesse Hunt, the press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the organization was confident that Estes will “close strong in the final days” and that GOP voters will turn out to “help send Ron to Washington to help support President Trump and Republican leadership in Congress.”

Curtis said the robocalls from Trump and Pence, Cruz’s appearance, and the late spending by the National Republican Congressional Committee were a sign of Republicans’ concerns.

“You don’t sound the alarm if you think you’re safe,” he said.

Jonathan Shorman of the Wichita Eagle and Alex Roarty of McClatchy’s Washington Bureau contributed to this report

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